


cotyledons

by luckybarton



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy is a Mess, Expelli-gender! 2020, Gardens & Gardening, Getting Together, Herbology Professor Neville Longbottom, Hogwarts Pedagogy, M/M, Potions Master Draco Malfoy, Trans Draco Malfoy, Trans Male Character, magical binders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckybarton/pseuds/luckybarton
Summary: When Draco and Neville start to get closer, there's space for something new to grow.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 96
Collections: Expelli-gender! 2020





	cotyledons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VeelaWings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeelaWings/gifts).



> **cotyledon**  
>  /ˌkädəˈlēdn/  
> Noun - Botany  
> An embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first leaves to appear from a germinating seed.  
> \- [Oxford University Press](https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/cotyledon)

Draco wished that the appointment he’d set with Neville had been in his office. It could at least have been on _his turf._ As it was, they were in Neville’s, which he’d always assumed before had been part of the Herbology nursery. It wasn’t – it was definitely part of the castle, with some kind of presumably-magical window to the swiftly darkening outside world and an assortment of colourful potted plants dotted around the places books weren’t. A blue cactus-looking thing snapped at him. He glared back.

“I’m going to need to have your requests in advance, you know,” Neville said, with what Draco would later realise was more restraint than he would personally have considered possible for a human to maintain. He was holding the memo Draco had sent him, a list of plant names scrawled on scratch parchment and signed with—curse it—a smiley face that had seemed so much like a good idea at the time. _A smiley face._ Why?

“How far in advance?” Draco asked, furtively trying to scan the page to work out what, precisely, he was going to have to rework or replace. Surely not all the plants—

“All the plants you’ve written down here need at least two weeks of grow-time to get to the stage you need them to be at,” Neville replied, brow furrowing, “most of them four-and-a-half or so. You’ve given me _three days._ ”

“I didn’t know it was going to… take so long,” Draco said, thinking about instantly-blooming flowers and Qwik-Sprout Plant Friends like he’d bought for Ron’s kids.

“Not everything grows as fast as Boggart’s Cress. If you—oh, never mind, it’s not interesting. Or relevant, really,” Neville said. Seeing Draco’s dour look, he smiled. “You were thinking of Boggart’s Cress, weren’t you?”

“I’m not much of a gardener,” Draco admitted. “It’s pretty much the closest I ever get to plants—when I’m not using them, I guess.”

Neville nodded. “Presuming you still want all of these, I do have the space for them. You can come and check on them if you like, so long as I’m around.”

“So I don’t sprinkle growth potion on them,” Draco said.

“If you want to focus on that part, sure,” Neville said, “but this is, what, the third time we’ve had this sort of conversation? Three days is just—I’m sorry, but it’s extra egregious. I thought you might get more of a feel for it if you saw the stages of growth in real time, rather than in a potions’ reference book.”

Draco thought for an uncomfortably long moment. “Sure. Send me an owl when you know when is good, and I’ll let you know what fits in my schedule.”

“I’ll start planting them tomorrow--”

“Tomorrow’s no good,” Draco said. “Tomorrow I have a class of ickle first-years, and then I have to come up with a convincing excuse for the new class of NEWT students as to why I’ve suddenly changed their lesson plan to one that only uses _dried_ herbs.”

“Ah, well, you can let me know when you’re not all tied up with things,” Neville said.

Draco nodded in agreement and turned for the door. “I’ll see you then.”

After the door closed, Draco stalked off to the Potions’ storeroom to try to come up with some kind of inventory of dried-or-preserved _stuff_ that might require knife skills, so he could justify having made the NEWT students practise on pieces of broccoli as something other than torture-by-terminal-boredom. In the end, he’d sorted out a few jars and started leafing through a reference book, trying to find something suitable that used at least one.

It was getting late, and he was getting tired, but getting this done tonight would mean that he wouldn’t have to do it tomorrow, and might possibly catch Neville for the planting. He’d wanted to get out of Neville’s office for the entire conversation that they’d had, but if he was honest with himself, he _did_ want to see how the plants were grown. He made a few more notes, then a few more, and then he woke up in the morning groggy and with a book pressed against his nose.

The awareness that he was in the potions storeroom and had somehow managed to _fall asleep_ there was only shortly followed by the realisation that his binder, still present, was sweaty under his robes. He had _not_ meant to sleep in it. Grimacing, he muttered a loosening charm, took a deep breath, and made himself cough. Then, remembering the long list of other staff who could enter, he tightened it again. He could deal with the issue later.

He gathered the items he’d meant to leave with that evening before stepping out into the hallway. A steady stream of students had started to walk through toward his classroom. _The first years._ Well, this lesson was going to be more ramshackle than anyone had expected.

It was fortunate, Draco decided, that first-years were easily impressed. A few small explosions and they were convinced that they had learned something worthwhile. He could deal with the complaints from _Filch et al._ sometime later. He locked the classroom after they left and repeated the loosening charm, his ribs complaining with a twinge. He had a good few hours before his next class started, and he was pretty sure that _this time_ he wasn’t going to fall asleep and nearly miss the start.

After setting the day’s broccoli stalks out on the tables, he felt a pang of hunger and realised that not only had he missed his morning coffee—a sad state of affairs, and one that made him rather tired—he’d missed breakfast. He surmised that he’d just have to grab a bit extra at lunch—he wasn’t going to go to the staff room any time soon with his binder loose, and he wasn’t going to tighten it so that he could go, either.

Fortunately, there was the equipment required to _creatively_ brew tea in the Potions classroom, so Draco occupied himself with making various brews until it seemed like a reasonable time to head off to the Great Hall. He sorted out his binder and cleared up the tea leaves before making his way over.

Neville waved to him when he got close to the staff table. “Didn’t see you at breakfast.”

Draco shrugged wearily. “I got stuck in a book. You know how it is.”

“Must have been a good book if you forgot to comb your hair,” Neville said, smirking.

Draco rolled his eyes and loaded up a plate with pasta. “I got my lesson plan done last night, surprisingly. I can join you for planting—if you haven’t done that yet?”

“I already did about half the planting this morning, but if you’re free at four this afternoon, you can join me for the rest.” Neville said, eyeing a pot of coffee which Draco was swiftly emptying.

“Sure, uh, sounds good,” Draco said, mentally running through what he had to do that day. “I’ll see you.”

The time between lunch and meeting Neville felt like a blur. He elected not to comb his hair, deciding that acting like it had been a purposeful style choice – however inadvisable – was less embarrassing than the idea that he’d just _forgotten_. In the humid conditions of the greenhouse, it was bound to frizz up anyway.

Neville had waited for him to arrive: the paper bags of seeds that needed planting were out but not open on a large wooden worktable, and a stack of seed trays beside them.

“I’m ready to get my hands dirty,” Draco announced, immediately feeling like a massive dork.

“That’s good, because you’re probably going to have to,” Neville said. “None of these things are safe to magically plant, so…”

“Not safe?” Draco asked.

“Ever try to charm a cauldron to brew something for you?” Neville asked.

“Ah… yeah. That, unfortunately, was my dissertation,” Draco said, grimacing, “it only works… a little. Some of the time.”

Neville nodded. “It’s like that. These plants _work_ in potions because they—more or less—weave spells as they grow. That probably comes up in theory for you, but the point here is that we don’t want to disturb that process with residuals from other spells. So—putting dirt into trays by hand.”

“Should I start that, then?” Draco said, eyeing up the stack of trays.

“I’ll get you a trowel,” Neville said, before disappearing behind a row of trellises and shortly re-emerging with a small spade. He walked back to the table and grabbed the top tray. “Pack it loosely. You want it up to that line,” he said, gesturing to an indented fill line.

As they filled the trays, Neville started to talk about the differences between the different plants and the conditions they needed to grow. Draco tried to take it all in, but it was getting increasingly more difficult to keep his thoughts coherent. He felt deeply exhausted, but not in a way that would allow him to fall asleep. He finished a row of seeds, then reached back to the bags to get more to keep going.

Neville tapped Draco’s arm to stop him. “Those are the twisted asters. You want those ones,” he said, pointing to another bag.

“Thanks for the catch,” Draco said, taking a new pinch of seeds from the right bag. He felt a sudden sense of warmth from the touch and quickly shook his head to try to wipe out any other thoughts his mind might drift to. Like Neville’s arms, how strong they were--

“Are you feeling alright?” Neville asked.

Draco made a questioning noise. “Yeah, I guess? I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep brilliantly,” he said.

Neville smiled slightly, in a way that made Draco feel uneasy about what was to follow. “I was chatting to Filch earlier,” he said.

Draco stared. “You had a _chat_ , with _Filch?_ ”

“He’s not that bad if you’re not a student,” Neville said. “It’s actually kind of—never mind. You haven’t spoken to him since you started working here?”

“Of course I’ve _spoken_ to him. Just not…” Draco trailed off. “Just haven’t had a chat with him. Not what I’d call a chat, anyway.”

“Anyway, I was having a chat with Filch,” Neville said.

“And,” Draco said,

“He said that he hadn’t been able to sweep the potions storeroom,” Neville said, “because someone had fallen asleep with their face rammed into a book. He said he hadn’t been able to tell who it was.”

“I don’t understand why you had to have a chat with Filch,” Draco said, feeling his skin flush pink.

Neville gave Draco a side-eye. “We’re almost done here, but we’ll have mostly missed dinner by the time we’re back. I think it’s only fair that I offer to take you out for it—if you want to, of course?”

“I have food in my flat,” Draco said, trying to remember what food he had in his flat. He was sure that there was at least some cereal.

“Okay,” Neville said. “But the offer’s open.”

They finished planting the seeds, sprayed each tray with a liberal amount of water, and set them in a few free spaces in the greenhouse. Draco’s stomach grumbled. “I think I’ve changed my mind on going out for dinner,” Draco said. “If you still want to. But I insist on paying for myself.”

“If you’d like to,” Neville said. “The Three Broomsticks?”

“Sounds fine,” Draco said, biting back a concern about it being a student haunt. It wasn’t _really_ , and there weren’t _too_ many other options. He also trusted their kitchen a whole lot more than the Hog’s Head’s. “How do you want to get there? I’m not really feeling up to apparition, but it’s a good evening to fly. Really clear. Want to do that?”

Neville looked uncomfortable. “I left my broomstick back at home. We could walk. Or floo?”

Draco grimaced. “Walk, if that’s fine. I’m not particularly feeling like clambering into a sooty fireplace right now.”

“Sure,” Neville said. “We should probably head off now then, before it gets completely dark.”

The walk down was pleasant, if chilly. The path was hard-packed dirt, and the streetlights along its edges flickered to life a few minutes in. The pitch of the sky swiftly deepened as an orange glow appeared at its edges and on the outlines of a few lonely clouds.

Neville cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for confronting you so harshly the other day. It wasn’t necessary.”

Draco furrowed his brow. “I—confrontational? I know it was a confrontation, but I don’t know that it was… too much? I got the impression that it hit a nerve.”

“ _Yeah, it hit a nerve!_ There are a lot of things people assume—wrongly—about herbology. Sometimes, I think people think you just toss some seeds at dirt and wait!” Neville gave a wry smile. “So I was pretty irritated about it. But I think that maybe I should have just asked you to join me for some plant-care stuff earlier.”

“To be fair, I think the only reason people don’t underestimate potions more is that while everyone decides that the recipe is nonsense and they can do something different at _least_ once, the results are usually pretty dramatically bad. Meanwhile, plants dying are down to a black thumb,” Draco said.

Neville rolled his eyes. “Convincing some of the students that overwatering doesn’t mean you get a bigger plant automatically is _a whole thing._ Then they go and act like they did nothing wrong and it’s the plants fault they drowned it and gave it root rot.”

“I’ve been trying to build in more explanations and more theory, especially earlier on. I don’t think the whole subject should be down to how well you can remember and implement a recipe. You need to be able to _think._ ” Draco said.

Neville nodded. “Oh?”

“Basically, I’m hoping that by the time some of the first years start messing around with things, they’ll be able to explain why they thought it would work. None of this _oh, I thought adding cinnamon would make it taste nicer_ nonsense.” Draco mimicked the voice of an belligerent student.

“Maybe I should make the class do an experiment,” Neville said. “Different amounts of water, on plants with different tolerances. They’d more or less have to understand it after that.”

Draco shrugged. “Sounds like a plan.” He looked up at the sky. “Wow. It’s so dark now.”

“Five minutes or so to town,” Neville said.

“Yeah, I can see the lights,” Draco said.

They made small talk as they got to the pub, where they managed to get a nice table near a window. Draco ordered fish and chips, while Neville had some kind of vegetable pie. It was full of something orangey that Neville swore was delicious. Draco thought it looked questionable, but managed to keep most of his thoughts to himself. The fish, for its part, was far too greasy. He ate it anyway.

Draco set down his fork. “We should do this again sometime,” he said. “Or, er, something else. You know.”

“Yeah, sure,” Neville said. “Um, the plants, or this?”

“Mostly the plants,” Draco said. “It would be nice to do other stuff, though. A lot of the people I made friends with after NEWTs, or even in Hogwarts… they don’t live close, and we fell out of touch a bit. Turns out that’s harder to do when you don’t see people face-to-face all the time,” he said. “Must be different for you, though?”

“Not really,” Neville admitted. “They’re either _high-powered business wizards_ or whatever, or they’re still convinced that the height of entertainment is waking up with their head in a toilet. Or both, at the same time. I haven’t yet worked out how tragic that is.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “And _you’re_ not a ‘high-powered business wizard’?”

“Surprisingly, I don’t consider myself as such,” Neville said.

“So we’ll do this again.”

“Definitely.”

**Months Later**

“What is this?” Neville asked, curiously eyeing the patch of black lines on the massive, typewritten… _ticket?_

“Muggle theatre,” Draco said. “They don’t have magic, so the set building is a bit weird, but the things they do to work around that are _ingenious_. You’ll love it.”

“What do you have to wear to go there?”

“Uhh… muggle clothes. Just muggle clothes, I think. You’ve got some, right?”

Neville nodded. “I do have muggle clothes.”

“Okay, so you’re still free on the fourteenth, right?”

“Yeah, but how are we going to get to London?” Neville said. “Also, how much is that in wizarding money? So I can pay you back.”

“I’m paying, which means I’m not telling you. About the money. We’re going to take the muggle train,” Draco said.

Neville looked uneasy. “What’s the muggle train like?”

“In comparison to the Hogwarts Express, not that good. But it absolutely beats the Knight Bus,” Draco said. “I went on one as a child, and it was fun. I wanted to do it again.”

“Draco—I don’t want to be weird, but—is this a date?” Neville asked.

Draco turned pink. “I mean… it’s not a date. Unless… do you want it to be a date?”

Neville looked away. “Uh, yeah, I mean, I… I think I would? I would like it to be a date,” he said. “Would it make things weird if it was a date?”

“I don’t think so,” Draco said. “It just means that I get to plan a trip with my… boyfriend? Do I get to say boyfriend, then?”

 _“You can say boyfriend,”_ Neville said, grinning.

“I’m planning a trip with my boyfriend,” Draco said. “I can’t wait to go.”


End file.
